“I found out I was poor in middle school,” Davis says between bites, as he recalls intermittent forays into the drug trade. “I had holes in my shoes and I started getting ripped on. So I just started hitting the block, and I was like ‘Man, nobody’s going to be bothering me now. I’ve got money in my pocket.’ But I realized that can’t go on too long.”

Karen Spain spent several long months before receiving her tax refund this year in a state of suspended panic. The rent was three months late. Her car’s brakes were shot. And she could no longer afford to pay her electricity bill.

Read more of this New York Times article by Sabrina Tavernise by clicking here.

]]>http://togetheromaha.org/antipoverty-tax-program-offers-relief-temporary-2/feed/0Living on less than $2 a dayhttp://togetheromaha.org/living-2-day/
http://togetheromaha.org/living-2-day/#respondMon, 12 Mar 2012 14:53:50 +0000http://74.54.94.242/~together/?p=461Can you imagine living on less than $2 a day? That’s exactly what nearly 1.5 million American families have had to do.

]]>http://togetheromaha.org/living-2-day/feed/0From under a bridge, into a homehttp://togetheromaha.org/bridge-home/
http://togetheromaha.org/bridge-home/#respondFri, 17 Feb 2012 18:35:37 +0000http://74.54.94.242/~together/?p=298Rettele is one of the “chronically homeless” — people who typically have a disability, an addiction or both and have been continuously homeless for more than a year.

Their needs and society’s cost have propelled a national push called Housing First that offers permanent supportive housing — apartments or assisted living with case management — to chronically homeless people without first requiring that they get sober, get healthy or have jobs. It reflects a thrust by the government to get chronically homeless people off the streets and, some skeptics point out, off homeless census counts.

Proponents say it can save lives and money. One recent study of formerly homeless alcoholics in Seattle reported a $30,000-per-person savings a year.

Opponents warn it can detract from emergency shelters, which long have been in the business of providing care to the homeless and can keep closer tabs on them.

]]>http://togetheromaha.org/bridge-home/feed/0Even Critics of Safety Net Increasingly Depend on Ithttp://togetheromaha.org/critics-safety-net-increasingly-depend/
http://togetheromaha.org/critics-safety-net-increasingly-depend/#respondMon, 13 Feb 2012 18:51:10 +0000http://74.54.94.242/~together/?p=311He makes about $39,000 a year and wants you to know that he does not need any help from the federal government….

….Yet this year, as in each of the past three years, Mr. Gulbranson, 57, is counting on a payment of several thousand dollars from the federal government, a subsidy for working families called the earned-income tax credit. He has signed up his three school-age children to eat free breakfast and lunch at federal expense. And Medicare paid for his mother, 88, to have hip surgery twice.

]]>http://togetheromaha.org/critics-safety-net-increasingly-depend/feed/0‘Housing first’ and helping the homelesshttp://togetheromaha.org/housing-first-helping-homeless/
http://togetheromaha.org/housing-first-helping-homeless/#respondWed, 10 Aug 2011 18:44:29 +0000http://74.54.94.242/~together/?p=302Initial findings on ‘housing first’ programs, such as Project 50 in Los Angeles, show that they may be a solution to chronic homelessness and possibly save taxpayer money.

In its recent series on a controversial program for the homeless, The Times described a project called Project 50 that seeks to put a roof over the heads of substance abusers without requiring them to undergo substance-abuse treatment, while still offering them as many services as they would use.

The new approach, known as “housing first,” has been heralded in communities across the nation as a promising solution to end homelessness and save taxpayer money. Skeptics have asserted that the program is both wasteful and immoral because it simply warehouses substance abusers, enabling them to continue their self-destructive lifestyles with the support of taxpayer dollars.

….Johns and O’Bryan realized that if you totted up all his hospital bills for the ten years that he had been on the streets—as well as substance-abuse-treatment costs, doctors’ fees, and other expenses—Murray Barr probably ran up a medical bill as large as anyone in the state of Nevada.

“It cost us one million dollars not to do something about Murray,” O’Bryan said….

It was the first day — the first 6 a.m. shift — of Omaha Registry Week, a local effort to find and interview the city’s homeless population. Organizers and volunteers hoped to find housing for the most vulnerable folks. I was riding with Methaney and Smolsky, two of almost 75 volunteers helping with the weeklong search.

The Metro Area Continuum of Care for the Homeless (MACCH) hosted the event in collaboration with the national 100,000 Homes campaign. Spearheaded by the New York non-profit Common Ground, the goal is to house 100,000 homeless people nationwide by July 2013.

Omaha is home to more than 1,400 homeless people as of January, according to MACCH, which hoped to interview 300 of the people last week. Through one hour of searching, we’d interviewed one.

Living on the street can shave 25 years off a person’s life. And death can come within seven years when being homeless is paired with one of eight risk factors, like age, disease and multiple emergency room visits.

In Nashville, most homeless outreach agencies believe a home is something that must be earned. Roughly four years ago, the Metro Homelessness Commission decided that approach wasn’t cutting it, that too many chronically homeless lingered on the streets and it was costing the city money. The commission adopted a program called Housing First as the solution, but it’s been slow to gain traction.